West Lothian Council has chosen Asperity Employee Benefits to provide a brand new integrated voluntary benefits scheme for its 8,000 employees.

Following a thorough tendering and re-tendering process involving several other employee benefits providers, the decision was made to appoint Asperity, who specialise in streamlined benefits packages.

The new integrated scheme for West Lothian employees will be launched in May. Based on Asperity’s Reward Gateway platform, employees will be able to access thousands of shopping discounts at top retailers such as Marks & Spencer and Comet, as well as sign up for Cycle to Work and Childcare Vouchers – all on one easy-to-use, fully branded website.

Employees will also have access to a dedicated telephone helpdesk that provides support and advice for the scheme 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Neil McLeod, Employee Benefits Manager at West Lothian Council, commented: “We’re really looking forward to rolling out the new VB scheme to our employees. Asperity’s integrated model was really attractive to us as we have previously had separate salary sacrifice scheme providers; keeping it ‘all under one roof’ helps our employees get their heads round the voluntary benefits scheme as a whole and we think this will boost takeup significantly.”

Ross Musgrove at Asperity added: “We’re delighted that West Lothian have chosen us to develop their VB offering. As one of the most forward-thinking councils in the country, we are really happy to be working with them to make their VB offering something else they can be proud of.”